MSE Thesis Defense: “High-Resolution Characterization of Solid-Liquid Interfaces in Energy Storage Materials Using Microscopy: From Lithium Metal Anodes to Liquid Sodium-Potassium”

LRSM Reading Room 3231 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA, United States

Battery technologies are crucial for reducing greenhouse gases by enabling the use of renewable energy and facilitating the transition to electric vehicles, thereby lowering emissions. Lithium metal anodes are ideal for next-generation batteries in automotive applications due to their high energy density. However, issues such as dendrite formation and solid electrolyte interphases (SEI) affect their […]

MEAM Seminar: “Fingertip Friction, Materials, and Tactile Perception”

Room 337, Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Sliding touch is one of the key inputs for the perception of materials in our environment. We are interested in the contribution of fingertip friction to the process of tactile exploration and perception. Psychophysical studies address correlations between subjective judgements of perception and measured physical parameters of interactions, in our case of friction on materials […]

CBE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: “Metal Oxides and Ion-Modification: A Study in Chemical Stability, Transformations, and Dynamics” (Bader A. Alayyoub)

Raisler Lounge (Room 225), Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Abstract: Metal oxides, both simple and complex, are essential for catalysis and energy conversion due to their versatile physicochemical properties and are often enhanced through ion doping, a well-established strategy to improve their functionality. However, challenges remain, particularly in accurately characterizing the surface stability of such oxides beyond idealized conditions and in understanding the thermodynamics […]

MEAM Seminar: “Metallivore Robots Powered by Aluminum-air Batteries”

Room 337, Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Mobile robots have shown significant advancements in agility, intelligence, and efficiency over the past few decades. However, their endurance and overall performance remain limited by the onboard power supplies. Current power sources typically restrict mobile robots to areas close to the electrical grid and necessitate heavier batteries for extended range. Energy refueling could be significantly […]

CBE Doctoral Dissertation Defense: “Path-Sampling and Machine Learning for Rare Abnormal Safety and Reliability Events” (Vikram Sudarshan)

Towne 336 220 S 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Abstract: It is crucial for chemical and manufacturing industries to ensure safe and reliable operation of their plants and processes, by mitigating safety issues (e.g., extreme operating conditions) and reliability issues (e.g., production losses). But, a significant challenge faced by these industries is that such events are rare and undesirable, with little occurrence data available […]

ESE Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “Fair and Generalizable Machine Learning for Neuroimaging”

Zoom - Meeting ID 3394168579

Machine learning has been widely adopted to medical imaging research, yet it suffers from domain shift for real world applications. Due to the heterogeneity of medical data, machine learning-based diagnostic models are also prone to biases. In this thesis, we start from arguing the necessity of domain adaptation to achieve the optimal performance for each […]

ESE Ph.D. Thesis Defense: “Graph Machine Learning under Requirements”

Greenberg Lounge (Room 114), Skirkanich Hall 210 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Graphs are powerful mathematical tools that enable modeling of complex systems. Graph machine learning exploits possibly unknown data structures, which provides a unified approach to tackle a wide variety of problems. However useful in practice, graph machine learning solutions tend to suffer from three main limitations: they do not scale with the size of the […]

ESE Seminar: “Designing emerging computing systems with ferroelectric devices”

Greenberg Lounge (Room 114), Skirkanich Hall 210 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

This talk will present a brief overview of advances in ferroelectric devices and their integration into computing systems to provide novel functionality and energy efficiency in various data intensive applications. The talk will emphasize on cross-stack design opportunities in designing stacked intelligent 3D memory systems.

MEAM Seminar: “Examples of Elasto-Capillary Mediated Interactions on Thin Elastic Film”

Levine 307 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

I plan to tell two short stories. The first story is about a new drop fluidics that uses a deformable and stretchable elastomeric film as the platform. Such a soft film decorated with magnetic particles can be deformed locally with an external magnetic field. When these deformations are coupled with capillary force, small liquid drops […]

MEAM Seminar: “Tribosintering of Metal Oxide Nanocrystal Antiwear Additives: Growth, Wear, and Modeling”

Room 337, Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Machinery relies on lubrication to regulate the friction and wear at contacting interfaces. As new lubricants become less viscous to comply with environmental and cost-saving standards, the risk of surface-initiated machine failure grows. We show that metal oxide additives in low-viscosity lubricants will form protective coatings, or tribofilms, in situ at contacting interfaces. Compared to […]